Recently, imprint technology for producing micro patterns at a low cost has been proposed. This imprint technology is to press a stamper having concavo-convex pattern formed thereon (providing its surface configuration) which correspond to concavo-convex pattern intended to be produced against an transferred object, which is available, for example, as a given substrate covered with a resin layer, and can produce a micro pattern in the resin layer of the transferred object. Application of this imprint technology to forming a pattern of bits which are recorded in a large-capacity recording medium such as a hard disk and forming a pattern in a semiconductor integrated circuit is under consideration.
For an imprinting apparatus for use in a process of manufacturing a recording medium such as a hard disk, a stamper is needed as an original pattern plate for transfer. In a process of producing this stamper, the stamper is produced by transferring a master original pattern plate microfabricated by an electron beam fabrication device or the like to a resin layer over the stamper base material. This production method by transfer is implemented by using thermal imprint or optical imprint.
As for such conventional imprint technology, two types of transfer methods have been available to produce the stamper: a planar pressurization method (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2010-99848) using a press with an optically polished flat surface of glass and a fluid pressurization method (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2006-326927) using pressure of compressed clean air.
An advantage of the planar pressurization method is that a uniform application thickness of a UV curable resin is achieved by the press with the flat surface polished to a flatness of several 100 nm. On the other hand, this method has a disadvantage that, if a light source element which is just proximal to the pattern is contaminated with dust and/or smudges or has a flaw, ultraviolet (UV) light is blocked or affected by the contamination or flaw in the close vicinity of the pattern, which results in a deterioration in the uniformity of curing quality.
An advantage of the fluid pressurization method is that highly uniform curing quality is achieved, because clean air filtered to 100 nm or below is only present in the vicinity of a resin. On the other hand, a disadvantage of this method is that uniformity of an application thickness of the resin only relies on fluidity of the resin itself, because the resin is not pressed with a flat surface.